Beyond Good & Evil is an action-adventure video game published and developed by Ubi Soft in 2003. The game was created and designed by French games developer Michel Ancel, who also created the Rayman series. Beyond Good & Evil was developed concurrently with Rayman 3. Ancel opted out of the latter game's development to work on Beyond Good & Evil. After spending several years on the Rayman games, he wished to move on to something different. The game was released to critical praise, but it was a commercial failure. A sequel is currently in development under the name Beyond Good & Evil 2.

The game's soundtrack was composed by Christophe Héral, who also scored Rayman Origins.

Contents

Plot

Beyond Good & Evil takes place in the year 2435, on a once-idyllic mining planet named Hillys. The game's world is inhabited by a society composed of humans and anthropomorphic animals who co-exist peacefully. The architecture seen in the game is of a rustic European style, but more technologically advanced elements such as credit cards, email, hovercrafts and spaceships and are also featured.

The game's main protagonist is a young photojournalist named Jade (voiced by Jodi Forrest, who also provided the vocalisations for Tily, Razorwife and Globette in Rayman M and Rayman Rush). She lives in a lighthouse orphanage with her adoptive uncle – an anthropomorphic pig named Pey'j (voiced by David Gasman, the actor who has voiced Rayman since 1999). Like Rayman, Jade's origins are mysterious, and she is eventually revealed as a ‘chosen one’ with unique abilities. By the opening of the game, Hillys is beset my a monstrous alien force known as the DomZ, which comprise the majority of the enemies encountered throughout the game. Parallels can be drawn between the DomZ and the space-faring Robo-Pirates in Rayman 2. A dictatorial military group known as the Alpha Sections exercise an authoritarian regime over the Hyllian people under the guise of protecting them from the DomZ. Early on in the game, Jade is contacted by the IRIS Network, an underground organisation intent on uncovering the conspiracy between the DomZ and the Alpha Sections and liberating the people from their rule.

Gameplay

While primary a third-person action-adventure game, Beyond Good & Evil features elements of various other video game genres, including stealth, puzzle-solving and racing. Jade combats enemies with a Daï-jo staff, but also gains the ability to fire disc projectiles later in the game. A substantial number of the game's missions involve photography; Jade is often required to take photographs revealing the Alpha Sections' true nature, but optional side-quests involve photographing wildlife for rewards. At one point in the game, the player can come across a mosquito from the Rayman series, which is identified as ‘Aedes Raymanis’ (‘Fly from Rayman’). The world of Hyllis is presented as a single continuous environment broken only by load zones; there are no distinct levels, and the player must travel manually from place to place, as in Rayman Revolution. Jade's primary mode of transport is a hovercraft, which can be used to travel the watery streets of the main city and the surrounding seaside area.

One particularly overt parallel between Beyond Good & Evil and the Rayman series occurs during the game's final boss battle. The DomZ High Priest exerts a confusing influence on Jade, partially causing her to lose control over her body; this is represented by the player's directional controls being reversed. Exactly the same scenario occurs in the Candy Château at the end of the original Rayman; the villain, Mr Dark, casts a spell on Rayman which causes the player's directional controls to be reversed.